I’m thrilled to announce that my new novel How Greek Is Your Love? has just been published.
Based again in the wild Mani region of the southern Peloponnese, it’s a sequel to my first novel A Saint For The Summer. The new novel features the same main characters (Bronte, Angus, Leonidas, Myrto) and a few exciting new ones, with some gripping contemporary storylines. One of these reflects the social upheaval of the economic crisis in 2013 with a rise in extreme far-right political parties based on my own observations of living in Greece during this tumultuous period. The book is laced with plenty of suspense, but also unforgettable romance and humour. It can be read equally as a standalone, or as a sequel.
Here’s a short blurb of the book to
whet your appetite:
Bronte’s in love
but she’s a stranger in paradise
In this page-turning drama, expat Bronte McKnight is in the early days of her love affair with charismatic doctor Leonidas Papachristou. But as Bronte tries to live and love like a Greek, the economic crisis spawns an unlikely, and dangerous, predator in the village. While Bronte begins to question her sunny existence in Greece, an old love from Leonidas’s past also makes a troubling appearance.
Now working as a freelance journalist, when Bronte is offered an interview with a famous actress/novelist, and part-time expat, it seems serendipitous. But the encounter has a puzzling outcome that will take her south to the ‘Deep Mani’ region for which she will enlist the help of her maverick father Angus, and the newest love of her life, Zeffy, the heroic rescue dog.
The challenges
Bronte faces will bring high drama as well as great humour as she tries to find
a foothold in her Greek paradise. But can she succeed?
“A captivating book that grabs the
reader’s attention and holds it right to the end. This book confirms Marjory
McGinn as an author of popular fiction to be reckoned with.” ̶ Peter
Kerr, best-selling author of the Mallorcan series of memoirs.
A fortified stone tower of the Deep ManiIconic Vathia with its mostly deserted stone towers one the strongholds of warring clans in the Mani, but now a dramatic ghost village
This second novel, like the first, is set mainly in the hillside village of Marathousa, with the same breathtaking scenery, but it also takes the readers to untouched and unforgettable places deeper in the Mani peninsula as dramatic as the storyline, including the ghostly, deserted village of Vathia, where tough, warring Maniot clans built high fortified towers as they fought for dominance; the dramatic Porto Kayio cove; and the fabled cave of Hades (portal to the Underworld) near Cape Tainaron, at the southern-most tip of mainland Greece.
The ancient Temple of Poseidon at Cape Tainaron, close to the mythic Cave of Hades, once believed to be the doorway to the UnderworldPorto Kayio, one of the remote coves of the Deep Mani region
One of the
newest characters in the book is the lovable dog, Zeffy, whom Bronte rescues
from his homeless existence in the village and who will make you laugh and cry
with some of his capers. He will, however, repay Bronte’s love for him in many
unexpected ways.
The prequel,
A Saint For The Summer, is a
contemporary novel but with a narrative thread back to the Second World War to
the infamous Battle of
Kalamata of 1941 (“the Greek Dunkirk”) and the mystery of what became of
Angus’s Scottish father Kieran. He was serving in the region with the Royal
Army Service Corps during this time and disappeared in the battle.
Although
Bronte had initially gone to Greece to help Angus with a health problem it is
this difficult search to uncover the last days of Kieran McKnight’s life that inspires
Bronte to stay longer in Greece. And it is this that will bring charismatic Dr
Leonidas Papachristou into her life.
I had heard
something about this infamous Battle of Kalamata while we were living for four
years in Greece and the brave rear-guard action of the allies, who retreated to
southern Greece after the Germans invaded in 1941.
The WW2 backstory is only a minor aspect of How Greek Is Your Love?, but if you want to know more about the battle and how Angus and Bronte solved the compelling mystery of what happened to Kieran McKnight, you might also want to read A Saint For The Summer. It has been described by readers as “an excellent storyline”, “a cracking read”, “spectacular writing”, “an exciting novel”.
Here’s a
link to an earlier post about A Saint For The Summer.
If you like both books, please consider putting a small review/comment on Amazon. It all helps to raise the profile of a book. And is always welcome. Thank you.
THIS Saturday is the feast day of Ayios Dimitrios (Saint Dimitrios), pictured above in his usual guise, a jaunty character in a green cape, riding a sorrel-coloured horse.
It’s a big feast day in Greece (October 26) and the ‘name day’ for anyone with the moniker Dimitris, Dimitrios, or Dimitra for women. There will be a service early at churches named after the saint and then usually a yiorti, a celebration, nearby, especially in rural areas.
I’ve featured a few of these feast days and celebrations in my books as well as the local characters who frequented them. They are one of the best ways for foreigners to get a unique insight into Greek life with some of its pomp but mostly its spontaneity and eccentricity. It’s Greek people in their own world, enjoying the simple pleasures of village and family life with a rural papas, priest, or two in the mix as well. Tables will be spread out under the olive trees, as it was in the hillside village of Megali Mantineia, where we spent our first year in the southern Peloponnese. Locally sourced goat or lamb is often roasted in the village fournos (woodfired oven), or a spit-roast barbecue set up, or food brought from local tavernas. It’s always a nice occasion, unless you’re vegan perhaps!
Villagers, and two local priests, enjoying a yiorti celebration in the southern Peloponnese in front of a mad, smoking fournos
Ayios Dimitrios was a martyr saint who, in the 4th century AD, was imprisoned and tortured for helping the citizens of Thessaloniki in northern Greece to rise up against the pagan teachings of the Romans. The feast day of Ayios Dimitrios has an added charm because if the weather has turned especially warm in the last two weeks of October, the Greeks call this The Little Summer of Saint Dimitrios. It’s a mellow, euphoric end to the summer season. Traditionally, October us the time for farmers to bring their flocks down from the hills to lower pastures for winter grazing, so the Little Summer is always a welcome occurrence.
The Little Summer of S D featured significantly in my first novel A Saint For The Summer. The Saint in the title has a few different meanings in the narrative but the main allusion is to Saint Dimitrios because his feast day celebration in a Taygetos mountain village is instrumental in the plot, bringing an intriguing World War II mystery to its nail-biting conclusion.
Jim, Marjory and Wallace in the town of Koroni, one of the places featured in Marjory’s Greek trilogy
In my three travel memoirs, I describe other saints’ days because when we first went to the southern Peloponnese on our four-year odyssey we never said ‘no’ to these occasions. St Dimitrios was a favourite because my husband Jim was given the name Dimitris (the Greek equivalent) by villagers, and I was christened early on as Margarita by my goat farmer friend Foteini because she couldn’t pronounce my real name. These names stuck the whole time we were in Greece and seem to fire up again every time we return.
The feast day celebrations were always convivial and Greeks were generous in embracing outsiders in what is essentially a very traditional Greek day. We had good company, great local cuisine and plenty of wine and gossip. More importantly, as foreigners, we learnt a lot from these celebrations.
The tiny chapel of Ayios Yiorgos (above) in the hills behind the village of Megali Mantineia with its flower decked icon. A centuries-old fresco of St George in a Mani monastery (below)
One memorable celebration was for the feast day of Ayios Yiorgos (St George), possibly the biggest of the saints’ celebrations in Greece. St George was another great martyr saint and a tribune living in the first century AD who is always depicted on his white horse, spearing a dragon-like interloper. You can just see the beast above at the bottom of the icon where age and water damage have diluted the colours.
It was at this celebration in 2011 at a small chapel in the hills above Megali Mantineia that we met a businessman called Tassos over lunch who was curious about our odyssey in rural Greece in the midst of the economic crisis.
“Why come to live in Greece now?” he asked. “If weather and the beach is the main reason, there are sunnier and easier places to live than Greece.”
Greece has lovely unspoilt coves like these at Otylo in the Mani but it has many more hidden assets
It was hard to convince him that it was Greece we wanted for this mid-life odyssey and nowhere else. Still puzzled, he then asked: “What do you really seek to find, my friends, in our country that you cannot find in your own?”
It was a very good question. What indeed? And the question remained with me throughout my years in Greece, informing my own search for meaning and fulfilment in this country as well as informing my writing. The scene with Tassos found its way into an early chapter in the second memoir, Homer’s Where The Heart Is, as we took on more adventures in southern Greece and experienced the chaos of an increasingly bitter crisis.
His query is something that many expats ask themselves, if just in the form of ‘What is it about this complex country that I’ve fallen in love with?’ Of course, there’s no simple answer to this. For me, there were many things I sought and found, and loved, about Greece, as you will discover if you read Homer, and the other memoirs of course.
For the feast day of St George, tables spread under the olive trees for villagers, and the priest (left), of Megali Mantineia
It could be that being able to access these unique celebrations on feast days, like the one for Saint Dimitrios, is part of it, an ability to enjoy simple pleasures in beautiful surroundings, embraced by warm, inclusive communities. In our four years in southern Greece, in the Mani and later in the nearby Messinian peninsula, we went to many of these feast days. They were all different in location and intensity, and we enjoyed every one of them.
If you’re in Greece and you get the chance to attend a feast day, or indeed any of the other larger celebrations of Easter and August, do go, and also to the church services preceding them. You don’t have to be especially religious to attend because the services offer unique insights into much more than just the Orthodox faith. It is here that you gain insight into Greek traditions and social life, and rituals that are gloriously diverting and rooted in the Byzantine world. These are rituals that have changed little in the past 500 years. You won’t be disappointed. And Greek people, I promise you, will admire your interest and curiosity.
Part of the lovely plateia in Makrinitsa village, Pelion
NOT all Greek villages are created equally. Two villages can be several miles apart, with roughly the same background and geographical aspect, yet one will be thriving, with a plateia rimmed by busy cafes and tavernas, while the other is on the slide. Sometimes there’s no explanation apart from something that’s now lost in the natural twists of history.
When I was in the mainland region of Pelion last year I was strongly reminded of this fact and also how fiercely loyal and competitive Greeks are about their own village, no matter what shape it’s in. Jim and I had rented a villa in the south of the Pelion peninsula for a month. It was on the edge of a small village, which was quiet, with not many inhabitants apparently, but with gorgeous views down to the Pagasitikos gulf and well placed to access both this side of the peninsula and the other, on the Aegean. As people who don’t like touristy locations in Greece, we thought we’d done pretty well to find a comfortable house in this location.
View from the village of Metochi towards the gulf
Yet, while browsing in an old-fashioned souvenir shop in the coastal village of Milina, the black-clad owner of a venerable age asked us where we were staying. I told her Metochi, in the foothills behind. She pulled a great lemony face. “Metochi! Why would you want to stay there? There’s nothing there. Nothing but old houses. Pah! Here is better,” she said, waving towards the vista of crowded tavernas and sun loungers along the beachfront.
I laughed at her put-down of Metochi for being the poor relation to the buzzy, thriving Milina. In her mind Metochi fell into the second category of villages dwindling into oblivion. There are a number of run-down and abandoned houses in the centre of Metochi, that’s true, and it wasn’t hoaching with people, in September anyway. On the surface it was just a village on the way to somewhere else as it’s on the ‘main’ road from the popular town of Argalasti to the bigger village of Lafkos and then to the south of the peninsula. Lafkos is elegant with a large church and wide plateia (square) with classical houses and busy tavernas and cafes.
The elegant plateia in Lafkos village
Makrinitsa in the Pelion mountains is one of the most picturesque in Greece
The plateia is usually the hub of a Greek village and always a good indication as to whether the place is thriving or not, and it’s worth flagging this up when you’re in the market to buy a house in Greece. Some of the more remarkable villages in the Pelion mountains further north have sumptuous plateias, like Makrinitsa, set under huge plane trees and with a view down to the city of Volos. But Makrinitsa is well established with a stronger foothold in the region’s history. It has old churches with frescos and an impressive museum. This village has been the haunt of artists, writers and revolutionaries. Milies and Tsagarada are smaller mountain villages yet they too have obvious treasures. Milies has a public library with one of the largest collections of Greek and foreign books in Greece, with some of them dating to the 14th century. Its church of the Taxiarchon is also world famous for its acoustics. Tsagarada has a 1,000 year old plane tree in its beautiful plateia.
The surviving kafeneio in Metochi has rustic charm and doubles as a shop
A slightly forlorn sign on the plane tree in Metochi says: “Our village square.”
Metochi’s plateia was a ghost plateia during the day at least. It was large enough and well situated, high above the road under plane trees with incredible gulf views, and perfect to catch a cool afternoon breeze in summer. It must have been lovely once, with a traditional kafeneio on the far side, now closed, and a smaller one beside it, still operating for limited hours and serving also as a general store. The only time we saw people in the plateia was at night, men mostly, drinking beer and playing the board game, tavli.
At the top of the steps was a sign fixed to a plane tree saying: “Our village plateia”, which was a touching and yet forlorn message. Such as it was, many people obviously still took great pride in their plateia. But its semi-abandonment speaks of a village having lost its way somewhat, apart from some modern, yet discreet, holiday villas at its outskirts, surrounded by olive groves, where we were staying.
The deserted grill house in the village that is a quiet reminder of more convivial days in Metochi
The village had obviously had a different life once. At one end of it there’s a natural spring, spouting cool sweet water, where people still stop to fill up bottles. Across the road from the spring, there’s an abandoned psistaria (grill house) with its huge barbecue still visible at the front, for spit-roasting meat. The broad terrace here would once have been packed, especially on important feast days, but is now just an empty space where fallen leaves twirl in the wind and people park to fill up their bottles across the way.
This is a reflection of what’s happening everywhere in rural Greece, in hillside locations. In the Mani we found many villages that were beautifully sited with once-lovely stone houses that now seemed dead. In one village we found an abandoned kafeneio, its door hanging open and a collection of old junk and furniture piled up inside and old bottles and dusty glasses still on the wooden counter. It was as if the owners had hurriedly disappeared and left everything as it was. In another village we found a group of old people sitting around the front door of a crumbling stone house. There were five of them, most of the current full-time population, they told us rather mournfully.
The village of Metochi is not in such bad shape, not as long as an essential road cuts through it. It wasn’t vibrant and yet we liked its wound-down appeal, its solitude, the view, and no-one bothered us at all, apart from one village gossip. She regularly passed by on the road and one day stopped to ask a slew of personal questions, as Greeks often do, including how much we were renting the villa for because her daughter also had one to rent nearby if we were interested. Cheeky!
Greek rural villages at least are a world apart, whether they buzz or not. When you plan to live in one for any length of time you have to navigated them thoughtfully and choose wisely. Too quiet, too noisy, too parochial, or too steeped in difficult history, and you might be in peril.
A view of Megali Mantineia under the northern slopes of the Taygetos mountains in the Mani
The small sign on the main road to Megali Mantineia. It’s all you get. Blink and you’ll miss it!
When we settled in the Mani, southern Peloponnese, in 2010, for our long Greek odyssey, we picked a hillside village that felt remote, with the Taygetos mountains as its backdrop, but in fact was only a 15-minute drive to the outskirts of Kalamata at the head of the Gulf of Messinia. As it turned out, Megali Mantineia was perfect for us and our crazy Jack Russell Wallace, a type of dog that none of the villagers had seen before and thought resembled a small goat – and he often acted like one!
Megali Mantineia is a successful working village where locals still cultivate their vast olive groves and herd goats. We decided the best way to live there was to befriend Greek villagers rather than cultivate the British expats because we didn’t want to live an expat life. Not that trying to fit into any village as a foreigner is easy. It’s not. Had I not spoken reasonable Greek from a long association with the country and endless Greek language classes, I would have found it more difficult, as few of the villagers spoke much English. I quickly learnt the secret of fitting in was simple: go well beyond your comfort zone and leave all your preconceptions about life, up to a point, behind you.
Foteini, thrilled to have a copy of my first memoir which features her, and donkey Riko, on the cover
Riko grazing outside Foteini’s farm compound
When we first met the goat farmer Foteini – who features in my three Greek memoirs – she was riding into the village on her donkey. Conversing was a challenge as she spoke a heavy mountain dialect and things could easily have gone nowhere. But there was something so unique about her that Jim and I instantly took to her and when she invited us back to her farm compound (a place of rural junk and manic disorder) we never thought twice about it really. And so a strange and unusual friendship flourished, particularly between myself and Foteini. She certainly trounced all my personal preconceptions and, in her way, became a very unlikely muse. Our regular, generally very funny, interactions sparked my journalistic curiosity and inspired me to write the memoirs. How could I not? Fate had cast her on my path, on the very first day in the village.
Some of the villagers and priests from Megali Mantineia on a special feast day. Jim standing in back row, right
Since my first memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta, was published in 2013, readers have contacted me to confess they want their own Greek odyssey, which is lovely, and have asked for advice. I don’t have much really except for this: learn some Greek, talk to everyone. Go beyond what’s comfortable and take part in all the village celebrations (there are many during the year), and church services too because this is the best way to see Greeks as they really are. It’s a window into their society and shows villagers that you respect this, and their culture, and you’re not in the village just to have a remote, parallel life to them.
Before we finally returned to Britain, for personal reasons, we invited many of the villagers from Megali Mantineia to a farewell meal at one of the local tavernas. It was a bitter/sweet night and very sad to say goodbye at last. Everyone lined up to kiss us farewell, some bringing small gifts. One of the women, Voula, whom I’d also become fond of, hugged me and announced: “You’re one of us now Margarita (the name Foteini had given me). You’re a Maniatissa.” Maniatissa is the Greek word for a woman of the Mani. It was humbling to get the title; far better than a Queen’s honour.
Navigating the cultural terrain of a Greek village isn’t easy. It requires more of you than you sometimes want to give. But in the end, it offers you life experiences and insights you will struggle to find elsewhere.
Greek book offer
If you want to read more about life, drama and romance in Greek villages, my first novel A Saint For The Summer is currently on an Amazon ebook promo, 99p/99c (UK/US) from August 16 to 23. It’s a tale or heroism, faith and love with a narrative thread back to WW2 and set in the wild Mani region of Greece. One reviewer described it as: “An excellent read. I was hooked from the first page.” Another said: “The story made me laugh, made me think and made me cry a little.”
RAF Regiment 2771 squadron at Monte Cassino, Italy, Second World War. My father, John McGinn, centre, with the mortar gun
IT’S spooky, the rare times when reality imitates fiction. In my case, this was something of a huge revelation and it happened a few months after publishing my recent novel, A Saint For The Summer. It’s a contemporary story set in the Mani region of southern Greece but with a narrative thread going back to the Second World War in Kalamata. I spent four years in this region, from 2010, and I have written about my experiences there in my three travel memoirs (see website books page).
A cove in north Mani with Kalamata city to the left
The new novel follows the story of Scottish journalist Bronte McKnight, who goes to Greece to help her expat father Angus solve a mystery from the war, when his father Kieran, serving in Greece with the Royal Army Service Corps, went missing in the Battle of Kalamata. This disastrous battle in 1941 has been called the ‘Greek Dunkirk’, when around 17,000 British and allied soldiers, retreating from the German advance in central Greece, ended up in Kalamata, the ‘end of the road’, awaiting evacuation to Crete. Around 8,000 were left stranded on the city’s beach at the head of the Messinian Gulf as British warships, under heavy German fire, were forced to retreat.
The novel follows the exciting but difficult path Angus and Bronte must take, with few leads, to find out what became of Kieran during the battle, and if he died in Greece, where he was buried. They are helped in their quest by a cast of memorable Greek characters.
Readers have asked me what provided the inspiration for the war strand of Bronte, Angus and Kieran. I became curious about the Battle of Kalamata while living in this southern region, partly because it had a huge impact there, and yet beyond Greece, it was almost unknown. I began researching the topic while living there. The plot idea about Bronte and her missing grandfather pretty much dropped into my head during my stay in Greece. I did think though of my own father, John McGinn. He served in WW2 in the RAF Regiment, which was a specialist airfield defence corps and fighting force, formed in 1942. I knew he had been deployed to north Africa and Italy, and was in some horrific combat situations, but that’s all I knew.
I therefore didn’t base Saint on his war experience, and as far as I knew he hadn’t been sent to Greece, but I did base Kieran’s personality and his Celtic looks on my father, who had magnificent wavy auburn hair and fine bone structure. He was a handsome young man, full of high spirits, Scottish born, but also with Irish heritage.
John McGinn, 18, a new recruit in the RAF Regiment in WWII. (Family photo)
John McGinn in north Africa
Writing Saint had been a fairly intense experience, with quite a bit of research to undertake, so after it came out, I took a summer break from writing. Yet I couldn’t quite get the WW2 aspects of the story out of my mind. Curiously, it brought my thoughts back to my father again and made me speculate some more about his own war exploits. I knew so little. As a kid, I used to ask him for his war stories and he always flinched, saying he didn’t feel comfortable talking about it, and I accepted that it was something he preferred to forget.
As he died a long while ago, sadly, and was estranged from much of his family when we moved from Scotland to Australia in the 1960s, I had no way of finding out any more. A search online a few years ago for his war record had yielded nothing, as I didn’t have his squadron number for one thing. Or so I thought. I did have, however, a fine collection of old family photos and some of my father in the war (above), and a mass of memorabilia that had been in storage for some years. I promised myself I would sift through it properly once I took a break from travelling and writing books. It was now time to get started.
After sorting through some old documents, I came across two yellowing photocopies of censored Allied Forces postcards from my father to his family back in Scotland. The first carried Christmas greetings, sent from the Middle East in 1943, with a flourish of palm trees and minarets, with my father’s tiny, cramped handwriting across the top from “LAC (Leading Aircraftman) McGinn” to his family, wishing them a Merry Christmas. It also contained his squadron number and service number. I was thrilled with this. It was invaluable. The second Christmas postcard, dated 1944, was similar but showing just a map of the Mediterranean. With this information, I went online to see if I could find out anything about the exploits of this squadron. Fortunately, there is now a lot more war information online than in previous years and the amount of material uploaded (eyewitness accounts, journals) from the two world wars grows continually.
It was online that I had a breakthrough. And oddly enough, it was this factor of being able now to search for vital war information on the internet that had been a pivotal part of Saint when the fictional father Angus tracks down a possible pointer to the disappeared Kieran on an online veterans’ site. The reason for this inclusion in the plot was because in Greece I had come across several expats researching the Battle of Kalamata and lost relatives, who had done something similar, and it had impressed me. So, in effect, I was, without really meaning to, following my own fictional plot.
On a couple of sites I found accounts of the exploits of my father’s 2771 squadron, particularly in Italy in 1944, and some of the information was attributed to a book published in 2013, which I immediately purchased and for which I am eternally grateful (RAF Regiment at War 1942 to 46 by Kingsley Oliver). I was able to establish for the first time exactly what my father had done in Italy, which gave me huge reverence for his war experience and explained why he hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
John McGinn, right foreground, with the RAF squadron keeping watch over enemy positions in Cassino, Italy
Detail of the main photo (above) of my father manning a mortar gun as the Allies attacked German strongholds on the steep hill in Monte Cassino
Not only that, I had the amazing good fortune of finding photos online (and some are also in Oliver’s book), which I had never seen before of the squadron during the battle of Monte Cassino. I recognised my father straight away in one of the pictures of the squadron in a ravine near Cassino, bombarding enemy positions (above). He was manning a mortar gun, looking impossibly young. And in another, he is standing in the allied ‘headquarters’, an archway under the Colle Belvedere aquaduct north of Cassino. Firm proof of where he had been during the Italian campaign. And there was another surprise too at the end of my research that I was wasn’t expecting. More of that later.
The squadron had initially been deployed to north Africa and after the surrender there of the Axis powers in 1943, the squadron were sent into the Italian Campaign against the occupying German forces. They went first to Naples and Rimini, and in the spring of 1944 to the front line, not far from Monte Cassino. The Battle of Monte Cassino was four massive assaults by the allies on this strategic part of the German-held ‘Gustav Line’ that crossed the rugged terrain of central Italy, with the aim of forcing the Germans to retreat, and to protect the route to Rome. Much of the fighting centred on the steep hill at Cassino, crowned by a vast and ancient Benedictine monastery which the Germans were using as an observation post, though firing from obscured positions on the steep sides of the hill.
The allied efforts to trounce the Germans in Cassino were amongst the fiercest and bloodiest engagements of the war in Western Europe, involving French and American troops and several British regiments, along with its allies: Indians, New Zealanders, Poles. Because of the intractable terrain, cut by rivers and deep ravines, the British troops dubbed the area ‘The Inferno’. The battles here were comparable to some of the worst scenes of WW1, with 55,000 allied casualties. And under heavy aerial bombardments, particularly from the American forces, the old monastery was reduced to rubble.
The RAF Regiment was there in a strategic fighting role alongside other British regiments. One of the other aircraftmen in the 2771 squadron, who would have fought alongside my father, Corporal Alf Blackett, later wrote of his wartime experiences in Cassino and the relentless fighting. “It’s a grim life, clinging tenaciously to the side of a steep hill with the Germans in strength on the other side and the RAF regiment men holding a sector of the front line.” At one point during an assault he said: “The regiment moved up to their positions on a moonless night in their tin hats and khaki. Near to the front, the officer told them to smoke their last cigarette. ‘This, chaps, is going to be one mad ride’.”
One eyewitness described it as a “living hell”, with the wounded and dead ferried down the hill in a vehicle called the Death Wagon. Although the allied forces were finally victorious in driving the Germans away from the Gustav Line in this decisive battle for Italy, I did begin to understand at least why my father had never had the stomach to talk about Monte Cassino. And while he wasn’t killed, like the fictional Kieran, or badly wounded, he came out of the ferocious bombardments having lost much of his hearing, a disability that affected him for the rest of his life.
Allied troops entering Kalamata in 1941
But the greatest surprise to me from my research into the operations of 2771 squadron was that after the Cassino engagement ended in May ’44, the squadron was deployed to Greece in the autumn, after the German withdrawal from the country. Some British forces, including the RAF Regiment, were there to support the Greek government troops, fighting the Communist Party (EAM), at the start of the Greek Civil War. The 2771 squadron defended the Hassani airfield, south-east Athens, and were also tasked with supporting British ground forces in central Athens against communist attacks. My father, as far as I remember, had never mentioned his time in Greece, but I calculated that the second postcard I found would have been sent by him from Greece, Christmas ’44. By the spring of the following year he had been redeployed to Yugoslavia.
The fact my father had been to Greece at all was a huge revelation to me. From a personal point of view, Greece has always been a driving force in my life from my childhood – and fate definitely had a hand in it. As a newly arrived Scottish migrant to Australia in the 1960s, at my Sydney school, I was put under the wing of another ‘migrant’, a young Greek girl called Anna. We spent many long summers together and in time I became almost part of her extended family. After leaving school, I had gone to Athens to work for a year and have visited Greece numerous times, culminating in my recent four-year stint. In all that time, I had no idea that my father’s war postings had taken him there.
For me to have written a novel with a Scottish soldier lost in the Battle of Kalamata in Greece, whom I decided to create in my father’s likeness, seems incredible to me now, as if the strands of our lives had become woven together at strategic points and fate had lured us to the same location, although I, at least, never knew until now.
When I see old photos of my father, after signing up to the RAF Regiment, it tugs at my heart to see how boyish and full of enthusiasm he was. Aged 18, and a gallus young lad (daring, high spirited), it would have seemed in the beginning like a grand adventure into the unknown, something I could relate to when I went on my own youthful journey to Greece.
My father was born in a rundown tenement in the infamous east end of Glasgow and the war was, for him, as for many working-class kids – the great escape. That much at least he told me when I was a curious youngster. “It was an escape from poverty,” I remember him telling me. Yet it turned into a descent into the Inferno in Italy. At least he survived.
Had I not written my first novel with its WW2 strand, it’s quite possible I may not have felt inspired enough to dig further into my father’s war record. I’m certainly glad I did and the fact that my book and his life are somehow now intertwined on some level has touched me greatly.
With the 100th anniversary of the RAF this year, it’s pertinent to remember all those who fought so valiantly in it, including the great RAF Regiment. We salute you all. And I dedicate this post also to the late, and much loved, John McGinn.
If any readers have relatives who were in the RAF Regiment’s 2771 squadron and who have more information about their operations or who may just want to get in touch, please do. You can email the website info@bigfatgreekodyssey.com
A Saint For The Summer is available on all Amazon sites and through independent book stores, quoting the ISBN number: 978-1-9999957-1-3 If you like the book and if it resonates with you, please do get in touch. I love to receive messages and feedback from readers, and Amazon reviews are also very welcome, too.
I am thrilled to announce that my latest book, a novel called A Saint For The Summer, will shortly be published (March 19), and is currently on pre-order at Amazon.
This contemporary story, set in the Mani region of southern Greece, combines family drama, romance and a World War II mystery, with a cast of intriguing and memorable characters.
Here’s the blurb of the book to whet your appetite:
JOURNALIST Bronte McKnight is summoned to a hillside village in the wild and beautiful Mani region of Greece by her estranged, expat father Angus to help him with a medical problem. But she soon discovers that Angus, whom she has barely seen in 10 years, has lured her there with a trickier challenge in mind – solving a mystery from the Second World War when a family member disappeared in Greece during the disastrous Battle of Kalamata, ‘Greece’s Dunkirk’.
With the country gripped by economic crisis in 2012, and the clock ticking against them, their near-impossible quest takes Angus and Bronte from Kalamata to a remote mountain village where its few remaining inhabitants are bound by old traditions and secrecy. As the pair try to reconcile their own fractured relationship, they are helped in their search for Kieran by a cast of intriguing Greek characters, especially charismatic doctor, Leonidas Papachristou. He has a pivotal role, not least in challenging Bronte’s assumption that she hasn’t the time nor the courage to fall in love in Greece.
The secrets unearthed by Angus and Bronte will be painful and astonishing. This is a compelling tale of heroism, faith, and love – with a heart-warming conclusion.
Part of the coastline of the Mani where the story is set under the northern edge of the Taygetos mountains
The idea for this book began to take shape in my mind during my four years in southern Greece from 2010 with my partner Jim and our mischievous terrier Wallace. While the narrative is based on real events, the characters are fictitious, but there is a gentle nod to some of the more memorable people we met while in Greece, with their eccentric and charming personalities, and lifestyle.
Kalamata city not far from the seafront and with a view of the northern Taygetos mountains whose villages feature in the new novel
One of the snowy peaks of the Taygetos from the settlement that inspired Marathousa village
A pivotal part of the narrative, however, revolves around what happened to Angus’s relative serving in the Royal Army Service Corp in Greece in 1941 and ending up at the Battle of Kalamata. I had heard something about this infamous battle while in Greece and the brave rear-guard action of the allies, particularly on the part of the ANZAC soldiers, against the Germans. I was always surprised that so little had been written about it.
Old photo of allied troops arriving in Kalamata in 1941
In 1941, when the Germans invaded Greece, the British and other allied soldiers were forced to retreat south from northern and central Greece, with a huge evacuation underway, called Operation Demon. Around 50,000 troops were evacuated from the Peloponnese, mainly under difficult circumstances, but many ended up in the southern port of Kalamata, the capital of this region, which was effectively the end of the road.
Here the allies, despite heavy Luftwaffe attack, fought on against the Germans who arrived in force in Kalamata on April 28. After the British surrendered on the 29th, the evacuation came to an end and the remaining Royal Navy ships returned to Crete. Around 8,000 soldiers were left behind on Kalamata beach and were told by their British commanding officer that they were now on their own and free to make their own escape.
Marjory with historian and writer Nikos Zervis at the Popular Library of Kalamata while they exchanged copies of their books
I became interested in the Battle of Kalamata through many of the people I met, both Greek and British expats. It still exercises a huge hold over the imagination of most Greeks in this region – who also fought bravely against the Germans – though it has not been documented to any serious degree, apart from a book of allies’ stories in Tell Them We Were Here by the late Edwin Horlington, and in Greek by the distinguished Kalamatan historian Nikos Zervis, whom I had the honour to meet there several times, when he talked at length about the battle.
Nikos is a delightful man and a great character, who has written a series of history books over several decades (in Greek) about Kalamatan history as well as an enchanting book about English author Lawrence Durrell who, though it’s not widely known, spent six months in the city. He went there in 1940 to establish a school of English studies, before the Germans invaded. Nikos and I talked at the Popular Library of Kalamata in the Pnevmatiko Kentro and also exchanged books. It was one of the highlights of a recent trip back to Greece.
The village of Megali Mantineia in the Mani which inspired to some extend one of the villages in A Saint For The Summer
A Saint For The Summer is not a war book as such, but it is still a gripping tale, and a certain Greek saint may just hold one of the keys to solving the book’s central mystery – hence the title. You’ll have to read the book to discover why that’s the case. And readers of my other books will once again be transported I hope to a sunny, familiar landscape in this wild and beautiful region of Greece, with its inimitable characters. It is also a compelling love story between the protagonist, Bronte McKnight, and the charming, enigmatic doctor, Leonidas Papachristou, with a heart-warming conclusion.
If you enjoy this book please let me know and remember that a review on Amazon is always welcome and helps to raise the profile of an author’s book. Here’s a short video about the book.
The book is on pre-order for two weeks until March 19 from Amazon UK http://amzn.eu/aj5bkc8 and US http://a.co/36iumko as an ebook with a special introductory price of £1.99/$2.99 and on other Amazon sites, and the paperback will follow. So hurry and order a copy before the price goes up after publication. The cover artwork has been produced again by the very talented London artist Anthony Hannaford www.anthonyhannaford.co.uk
